This is the last JSA collection with a Sandman connection, taking place amidst the chaos of the Infinite Crisis. Apparently, in the previous volume (Black Vengeance, which I skipped) my favorites Hector and Lyta Hall, parents of the second Dream of the Endless, were transported into Hell for defying Nabu, the Lord of Order.

I didn't understand much of what was happening in this book; heroes and locations are thrown at you like mad, and no one takes the time to explain who they are. Hal Jordan and Alan Scott chase Air Wave (a superhero who is apparently Hal's cousin), being driven mad by strange transmissions, into space, and end up at the source of the signals. "New Cronus," exclaims Air Wave upon seeing a planet, as though it explains everything. But what's New Cronus? Then Wonder Girl appears, and takes Air Wave with her. Why? Much of the book is just as confusing.

But since I was there for just Hector and Lyta, that was all right: they had no more idea what was going on than I did. Every chapter of Mixed Signals gives a couple more pages to them, as they travel through a desolate mountain range, under assault by demons for reasons they don't understand. In the end, Lyta has a dream that she's talked to their son, and they travel through a portal into the Dreaming, finally safe.

Awww. It's a great moment, and a great ending for these long-suffering characters, though to my knowledge they don't pop up in the Dreaming in any later stories. Their corpses lie on the ground after they travel through the portal-- was it all just a dream of Lyta's? But even it was, would that matter in the Dreaming? From the Silver Scarab to Brute and Glob to the Furies to Nabu, Hector and Lyta have always lost control of their lives to supernatural entities, and it's fantastic for them to finally get some peace. Thanks, Keith Champagne.

Neil Gaiman's The Sandman Spin-Offs: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

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